Fundamental is Non-Random by Ken Wharton

TH,

You say "....such as our universe have 3D boundaries". The 3D belongs to our reality, not to the universe; there's a difference. The 3D is just the definition of a point like relational observation, the observer. A lot of what we think we learn about the universe is in fact about ourselves.

Bests,

Marcel,

Dear Ken Wharton,

I like your essay, though I don't agree with all of it. You actually get to grips with the concepts, rather than jumping through them, as some do. And I enjoyed your way of writing. I agree that randomness can't be used to explain things, but with one exception - unless one suspects that it's at the very deepest level.

The symmetries and patterns the laws contain, which you mention as perhaps suggesting they didn't arise randomly, might be caused by something underneath that happens to generate a lot of symmetry in the levels further up. If so, how that underlying layer was selected would be a very open question, and in general, the question of how the laws arose is unanswered, and to me separate from these questions.

But looking at randomness within existing physics, at each level of description, there are things that behave with a mixture of randomness and predictability, and these mixtures make patterns. But at the next level of description down, the randomness disappears, and what was random gets predictable. So when we find something very deep that appears partly random, as in QM, we wonder if there's some even deeper level where it goes away. And we've found we can limit the possibilities for that, and that only non-local theories have the option, if they can find a way to do it.

But without knowing what the underlying picture is, if there is one, we don't know if the randomness is fundamental or superficial. I'd say it could be either, and unless one happens to believe one of the existing interpretations for QM (as I don't), one can choose to say it's an open question. I agree with what you say about boundary explanations, and that taking boundaries as fundamental is a possibility.

I'd appreciate it if you'd rate my essay - I've only had four ratings so far, and (although that included high ratings and nice comments from Fabio and Edwin), I've found one needs ten ratings for the average to be taken seriously. The essay deals with what relates the levels of description in physics, and argues that explanation does, alongside emergence. It also looks at questions to do with time, and makes a new point near the top of p2, which I'd say removes emergent time as a possibility.

Anyway, best regards,

Jonathan

Hi Ken,

Great essay as always.

On your explanation of the anthropic explanation coming from Boltzmann's account, you write: ""eventually something like our universe would randomly happen, and we find ourselves here because we're not anywhere else". Of course, this would happen over and over, so depending on how you define "we," we could be somewhere else (as you say, given infinite time anything that can happen will happen, but it will do so again and again). The anthropic part is really that we find ourselves here because conditions permit, not because we aren't anywhere else. Nitpicky I know! And you are right about the problems with this approach in any case.

The boundaries response is a nice alternative (and I like your conceptual motivation of it), and in line with the top-down approaches I mentioned. Of course, we will want to know "why this boundary?" Especially if there are other apparently possible boundaries.

Good luck!

Best,

Dean

Dear Ken,

A few years ago I derived & published a well fitting cyclic evolution model for galaxies with a mechanism also proving an excellent match to the complex CMBR anisotropies at the larger scale. That suggested a cyclic cosmologyy without the issues of the Penrose and other models. I've been focused on SR/QM but you've reminded me that its specific non-random re-ionisation mechanism also suggests 'cyclic entropy'. I'll pass you a link or pdf if you wish.

Rob Phillips essay identifies the ability to find a Gaussian (or Bayesian) distribution wherever we wish to look. This may seem inverse to your view. I agree both your arguments are correct but see yours as more productively fundamental. What's your view of his?

Most importantly. I ask for your help and advice on QM foundation; Say we endow each pair particle with 4 Maxwell state momenta, which I show exist in inverse cos distributions, and an anti-parallel polar axis (each pair random, but each one opposite) we have A (N/S), B (S/N). We also endow A & B with polariser field electrons and a dial to rotate them, N/S so the fields find either 'SAME' or 'OPPOSITE', switchable by A,B. Then I found the EPR paradox resolves in the way John Bell anticipated. That is Classic QM! The rest including non-integer spin and 'squared modulus' is (astonishingly!) in a full ontological mechanism in my essay.

Can you identify any errors? & Offer any help?

Declan Traill's short essay gives the corresponding code and CHSH >2 plot, plus a 'steering violation' closing the detection loophole and representing a 'pattern underlying the apparent randomness' (so you prevail on Phillips).

I know it "requires.. ..radical conceptual renewal." and is a "...the new way of seeing things will involve an imaginative leap that will astonish us. In any case it seems that the quantum mechanical description will be superseded." (J Bell p172 & 27).

Your excellent essay analysis seems consistent with the model but please confirm that. The model, of 'discrete fields' emerged from 'boundary condition' interpretation of SR which allows unification, also consistent with your model as well as with Minkowski and Einstein's 1908 and 1952 conceptions of infinitely many 'spaces within spaces' (as my earlier high rated essays 2011>>).

Thank you and well done for yours.

Peter

Dear Ken,

Thanks for the brilliant essay* from a like-minded** researcher in Quantum Foundations.

* Me hoping there follows something like this: "If the fundamental is non-random then (after existence), the fundamental is determined and law-like!"

** Me relating to this: "The very concept of a "random explanation" is as meaningless as the above suggestions concerning random laws of physics."

For my work on a foundational "wholistic mechanics" (WM) is intended to advance a classical/deterministic reformulation of physics in spacetime. The ultimate goal being WM = {CM, SR, QM, GR, QFT, QG, EFT, ...|TLR},*** my essay being an introduction.

*** My starting premiss (my classical boundary condition) is true local realism (TLR): the union of true locality (no influence propagates superluminally, after Einstein), and true realism (some existents may change interactively, after Bohr). [I'm surprised that naive-realism remains ubiquitous in physics.]

Rejecting the weird claims associated with Bell's theorem (BT), I studied EPRB, the experiment analysed in famous Bell (1964). I did not accept that the assumptions behind BT were valid in that setting, I rejected nonlocality, and (as an aside) time-reversal would not hold.

Then, revising EPR's naive definition of "elements of physical reality", I find determinism in play, refute BT, and (from first principles, in spacetime) find the Laws of Malus, Bayes and Born validated in our quantum world. Born's law (an effective field theory, in my terms; in the space of probability amplitudes and without mystery) can then be tested by confirming the correct result for the EPRB expectation; then the correct DSE results; then onward to the stars.

In thus eliminating "wavefunction collapse" and nonlocality from QM, it follows that such weirdness need no longer trouble the foundations of QFT; etc. And since my calculations are conducted in spacetime (not Hilbert space), I'm thinking QG is covered automatically.

Ken, such is my long way of saying that I will welcome your comments at any time.

With my thanks again for your stimulating essay,

Gordon Watson (determined and free-willed)

Ken,

The clarity of your argument is impressive, and it's given me a lot to think about, relating to the key issue - how do we explain the smooth (but not perfectly smooth) distribution of matter in the early universe? You argue that since it can't be explained by randomness, or by the operation of dynamic laws, any possible explanation has to relate to higher-level constraints - your boundary conditions on the universe as a whole. Then the question is, how are these constraints to be explained?

The point of my essay is to interpret the physics of our universe as constrained by the need to define itself - that is, to provide contexts in which all the various kinds of information it contains are measurable, in terms of each other. I argue that it takes a very special kind of system to support any quantitative measurement, and suggest that the diverse modes of interaction in our universe, along with the fine-tuning of it parameters, will eventually be explained by the stringent requirements on any such system.

From this perspective, the low-entropy initial state is one basic condition for a self-defining and self-measuring system to emerge. (I take that as having occurred during the era memorialized in the Cosmic Microwave Background.) I suspect this is not the kind of boundary condition you have in mind, but I don't think your objections to "random explanations" apply. The problem with my proposal is not that the conditions are random or arbitrary, but that they're hard to define from an a priori standpoint. It's fairly easy to see that without atomic structure, for example, no kind of measurement the would be physically possible. But it's not at all easy to list the requirements for any system that can measure its own constituent elements - since we have only one example of such a system to consider, and that quite a subtle and complicated one.

Thanks for a very prize-worthy contribution, and for taking me a level or two deeper into the issue of the meaning of entropy.

Conrad

Thanks Ken, I know you see time differently. I'd like your opinion on a new point about emergent time, which no-one had refuted so far. It's near the top of page 2 of my essay, and boils down to the need to explain a coincidence - if a real or apparent 'flow of time' emerged, then why was it so appropriate that it allowed laws of physics (such as laws of motion), which were already pre-implied in the sequence of the time slices in the block, to function? What were the laws doing, sitting there in the block in this 'just add water' sort of way?

Btw, I'd be grateful if you'd rate my essay - I've only had four ratings so far, although it was at number three a week ago. It seems that without 10 ratings, the average is not taken seriously. Anyway, thanks. Best regards, Jonathan

Ken, if/when you reply to my post, please copy it to my essay-thread so that I'm alerted to it. I'm having trouble keeping abreast of many good discussions this year.

Many thanks; Gordon More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss.

Ken,

Your essay exposes in fact the working of epistemology. In that sense, it is fundamental not only to science and physics, but to all our truth systems.

An impossibility is the boundary that defines or make finite a truth system, all truth systems. The impossibility to measure faster than light (SR), the impossibility to distinguish acceleration from gravity (GR), the impossibility to measure both position and momentum (QM) etc.are examples of this. In that respect, SR, GR and QM are separate truth systems because they are derived from different original boundaries or impossibilities.

Boundaries are fundamental to all our truth systems, geometry, maths, logic etc. But the universe happens by itself, spontaneously. It requires a deeper and ontological explanation or "starting point". This starting point is the law of non-contradiction which the universe's substance follows from its creation to its evolution.

All the bests,

Marcel,

Ken, Thank. Some questions;

Is it best to open mindedly assess theories (SM) or be wedded to a particular one?

I learned the Sci.Method is more important than any past papers. Do you disagree?

Do you think we should consider Bell's own analysis of his proof, or just others?

I'm no Bell denier, but unlike most I also agree with his views! Thing is, your 4 options omit them? Is that by design? I suspect not, in which case you'd need an option 5) "Some starting assumption used for QM is incorrect." Is that fair? He said he 'freely used' (so was testing) QM's assumptions. To further quote him;

"..in my opinion the founding fathers were in fact wrong.. ..quantum phenomena do not exclude a uniform description of micro and macro worlds" p171.

and "..quantum mechanics is at the best, incomplete." p.26.

So it may only be me who'se NOT a 'Bell denier'! I've tested all assumptions and found a hidden one to be is flawed; 'singlet states'. The experiment in my essay shows 4 REAL orthogonal states in OAM, and Ulla Mattfolk has just sent me links where I found the 'Poincare Sphere' which, as Maxwell, had already found them! Bohr! made 'NO' initial assumption on states but then made one; ('superposed/singlet states') without checking for others!!

Now if you follow my ('our') mechanism carefully you'll find the predictions of QM faithfully reproduced in full. No need for anything weird.

If you can't show it wrong it's be great if you collaborated and joined in with an early paper 'developing' your view to be consistent - so being more scientific & less 'religious' All 'camps' will be lost in the flood! unless you can show the crack in the dam I found isn't real! (CSHS >2 with closed detection loophole can't be denied!)

Interestingly the model followed my previous rationalisation of SR, so entirely unifies the two (in QM's 'absolute' time but with Doppler shifted 'signals' from metronome/"clock" emitters on co-moving medium transitions. (Bell did say the solution would 'astonish'!!) But one thing at a time!.

Looking forward to questions.

Very best

Peter

Dear Ken, Peter, etc: re Bell's theorem (BT).

Ken's position is firmly in the camp of retrocausality, with Huw Price.

Peter's position is: Some starting assumption used for QM is incorrect.

My position: BT (1964) is developed in the context of EPRB. BT is false in such settings; see Aspect's experiments, etc. A starting assumption in BT is incorrect.

I provide a concise [half-page] refutation of BT on page 8 of my essay.

I look forward to critical comments, etc, on my refutation and/or my position (above).

I'll happily expand on the refutation if there are steps that are not clear, etc.

Best, Gordon Watson More realistic fundamentals: quantum theory from one premiss.

Dear Ken

If you are looking for another essay to read and rate in the final days of the contest, will you consider mine please? I read all essays from those who comment on my page, and if I cant rate an essay highly, then I don't rate them at all. Infact I haven't issued a rating lower that ten. So you have nothing to lose by having me read your essay, and everything to gain.

Beyond my essay's introduction, I place a microscope on the subjects of universal complexity and natural forces. I do so within context that clock operation is driven by Quantum Mechanical forces (atomic and photonic), while clocks also serve measure of General Relativity's effects (spacetime, time dilation). In this respect clocks can be said to possess a split personality, giving them the distinction that they are simultaneously a study in QM, while GR is a study of clocks. The situation stands whereby we have two fundamental theories of the world, but just one world. And we have a singular device which serves study of both those fundamental theories. Two fundamental theories, but one device? Please join me and my essay in questioning this circumstance?

My essay goes on to identify natural forces in their universal roles, how they motivate the building of and maintaining complex universal structures and processes. When we look at how star fusion processes sit within a "narrow range of sensitivity" that stars are neither led to explode nor collapse under gravity. We think how lucky we are that the universe is just so. We can also count our lucky stars that the fusion process that marks the birth of a star, also leads to an eruption of photons from its surface. And again, how lucky we are! for if they didn't then gas accumulation wouldn't be halted and the star would again be led to collapse.

Could a natural organisation principle have been responsible for fine tuning universal systems? Faced with how lucky we appear to have been, shouldn't we consider this possibility?

For our luck surely didnt run out there, for these photons stream down on earth, liquifying oceans which drive geochemical processes that we "life" are reliant upon. The Earth is made up of elements that possess the chemical potentials that life is entirely dependent upon. Those chemical potentials are not expressed in the absence of water solvency. So again, how amazingly fortunate we are that these chemical potentials exist in the first instance, and additionally within an environment of abundant water solvency such as Earth, able to express these potentials.

My essay is attempt of something audacious. It questions the fundamental nature of the interaction between space and matter Guv = Tuv, and hypothesizes the equality between space curvature and atomic forces is due to common process. Space gives up a potential in exchange for atomic forces in a conversion process, which drives atomic activity. And furthermore, that Baryons only exist because this energy potential of space exists and is available for exploitation. Baryon characteristics and behaviours, complexity of structure and process might then be explained in terms of being evolved and optimised for this purpose and existence. Removing need for so many layers of extraordinary luck to eventuate our own existence. It attempts an interpretation of the above mentioned stellar processes within these terms, but also extends much further. It shines a light on molecular structure that binds matter together, as potentially being an evolved agency that enhances rigidity and therefor persistence of universal system. We then turn a questioning mind towards Earths unlikely geochemical processes, (for which we living things owe so much) and look at its central theme and propensity for molecular rock forming processes. The existence of chemical potentials and their diverse range of molecular bond formation activities? The abundance of water solvent on Earth, for which many geochemical rock forming processes could not be expressed without? The question of a watery Earth? is then implicated as being part of an evolved system that arose for purpose and reason, alongside the same reason and purpose that molecular bonds and chemistry processes arose.

By identifying atomic forces as having their origin in space, we have identified how they perpetually act, and deliver work products. Forces drive clocks and clock activity is shown by GR to dilate. My essay details the principle of force dilation and applies it to a universal mystery. My essay raises the possibility, that nature in possession of a natural energy potential, will spontaneously generate a circumstance of Darwinian emergence. It did so on Earth, and perhaps it did so within a wider scope. We learnt how biology generates intricate structure and complexity, and now we learn how it might explain for intricate structure and complexity within universal physical systems.

To steal a phrase from my essay "A world product of evolved optimization".

Best of luck for the conclusion of the contest

Kind regards

Steven Andresen

Darwinian Universal Fundamental Origin

Dear Ken,

Very enjoyable essay, well explained and insightful. You did a great job dispelling some superstitions even physicists have about the origin of the time arrow. I fully agree that no matter what one tries, the least problematic remains the past hypothesis. What amazes me is that I see once in a while people trying to explain the arrow of time by introducing some time asymmetry (with or without care to not be compensated by P and T symmetries) in the evolution equations themselves! In fact, even Penrose's Weyl Curvature Hypothesis is in my opinion not an explanation of the second law, but it may be a prediction of it, in the sense that at the Big Bang the sources of gravity exist, but the field didn't spread yet, somehow like the retarded solution of Maxwell's equations. Imposing WCH is equivalent to imposing law entropy for gravity, and it is just a partial restatement of the problem, not the explanation.

And I think you are right to propose that the boundary conditions may have the same status as the dynamical laws themselves. Now maybe this will lead, in the case of a universe which big-crunches itself (excluded by measurements of the cosmological constant) that the time arrow reverts when the universe reaches the mid-life crisis. But since it expands forever, maybe the initial and final boundary conditions manifest differently, even if they may be subject to the same principle. Maybe this can be connected to Penrose's Conformal Cyclic Cosmology (CCC), although there may be some complications here.

Your essay motivated me to organize some random thoughts I have about this subject.

So here is an idea I have about boundary conditions. I can call it "boundary law without boundary law", but is not as one may expect just another way to obtain boundary conditions out of the dynamics, as in fluctuations or Janus point. It is based on conformal symmetry. You know Maxwell's equations on Minkowski spacetime (backreaction ignored) are invariant to conformal transformations, which extend the Poincaré group. The conformal boundary of the Minkowski spacetime is mapped by conformal inversion to the lightcone at the origin, and vice-versa. So on the conformal boundary the (conformal transformations of the) solutions have the same kind of regularity as on the lightcone at origin. What's beautiful is that this conformal invariance applies to the entire Standard Model as long as all masses are 0, so his is equivalent to the absence/vanishing of the Higgs field (I don't know yet if this holds for the neutrino too). Now turn on gravity, the global properties of spacetime change. Maybe it is asymptotically flat, in which case the boundary remains similar. The conformal invariance is broken. But we know that there is a richer conformal invariance, the local one, consisting in rescaling the metric tensor independently at each point of spacetime. So I suspect that there is also a generalization of translations and in fact of the full conformal group. The reason I suspect this is that we still have conservation of momentum, because the stress-energy tensor is locally conserved, but it is local now. So I am in particular interested to see how I can make local the full conformal group. Now going back to the boundary, I suspect that some regularity persists even after we turn on gravity and the Higgs field. Even if maybe the conformal boundary changes because of the cosmological constant. So I think it worth seeing what are the effects on this regularity, what remains of it, after the breaking of the conformal symmetry. Note that maybe this can be connected to Penrose's CCC, but not necessarily, because maybe a scale inversion happens, maybe not, when crossing the final boundary to go back to the initial boundary. This needs to be investigated, maybe the asymmetry between the initial and final boundaries allow it, maybe not. If the asymmetry is too strong to admit scale inversions as in Penrose's CCC, I think this will be instead more like Penrose's WCH. Anyway, it seems to me that conformal symmetry may hold a key to obtain some boundary law from the dynamical law, in a fundamental way, as opposed to assuming fluctuations and anthropic principles.

About Boltzmann's brains, they indeed seem to be much more probable than any sort of stable brain which is the product of evolution. But there are two factors which I don't think were taken into account when making such calculations, at least not to my knowledge. Brains belonging to evolving species crowd together, both in time and space. In our world at least, life is finite, brains die and new brains are born, and they are born from one another. This implies a huge number of brains crowded together. One can speculate that it is possible to have species which are immortal, but it seems plausible that they are much rarer than species whose individuals have a reasonably short life span (but not too short), because this allows selection and evolution. So if we take this into account, could it be possible that the Boltzmann brains are in fact much less likely to exist than brains enrolled in a species? Moreover, a brain which is part of a surviving and evolving crowd, being subject to natural selection, it is much better adapted to observe the environment. So a crowd of n brains has a much larger probability than the probability of n independent Boltzmann brains. In the index counting of such brains we should also take into account not only the number of brains, but also their life span, so an ephemeral Boltzmann brain will be a very brief fluctuation very little connected to the environment, while for an observer it may be more likely to be part of a crowd of brains having longer lives. (of course the life span affects in two opposite ways this calculation). I think this argument relies on more parameters, and they are very difficult, if not impossible to estimate, and in addition we encounter similar problems as in the doomsday argument. Similarly for single planet orbiting a single star in a high-entropy background, we should take stability into account, Boltzmann brains may seem more likely, but it may be more likely for a mind to be in a stabler brain, and also stars tend to crowd too, although life on one planet seems not to be significantly correlated with life on other planets in the same galaxy. So although I think a boundary law or special initial conditions are a better explanation, it is not as easy to reject the explanation based on fluctuations based on Boltzmann brains.

After this long comment which turned into a mini-essay, how can I now invite you to also read my actual essay? :)))

Again, excellent essay! Good luck in the contest!

Best wishes,

Cristi Stoica, Indra's net

Dear Ken,

We agree pretty well that the current situation in which our more fundamental physical theories involve far too many adjustable parameters. For one, I do not believe, as the essay implies a standard theorist must, that these parameters were somehow (chosen at) random.

You seem to agree, but react in an altogether different way. I (as in my essay) seek to explain the respective systems of equations as the result of a more fundamental formula, EVALUATED AT "|" the respective space-time. In the traditional sense, that expands the meaning of |H> to include other scales, besides the traditional weak scale. *It is clear from your consideration of BC that you understand the fundamentality of Hamiltonian, H and in QM |H>, and Classical mechanics.

I emphasize that this is a re-interpretation of Dirac's notatation, but it aligns somewhat with your thinking on the subject. After all, a space-time average is simply taken over designated space-time 'boundaries'. So I derive GR and QC/ED from a generic basis via choosing the 'boundary conditions' used in "|", i.e. the traditional |weak, and in particular |astrophysical in which GR (at the time=present) is derived.

The resulting |H> at strong scale is quite revealing, and can avoid the "appearance of 'randomly selected' adjustable parameters".

However, I must note that this work is based on and constructed in 100% agreement with Hartle, Hertog and Hawking's work on the cosmological "no-boundary condition" basis. I would suggest that you consider their work quite highly, as it also helps me eliminate both that pesky "initial state of cosmology" AND "cosmological coincidence" problems.

J.B. Hartle, S.W. Hawking and T. Hertog, "The Classical Universes of the No-Boundary Quantum State" hep-th/0803.1663v1 March 2008.

I'd be willing to come out to San Jose to explain better via a seminar... but please feel free to read my work here and online arxiv.

Wayne

https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3092

Hi Ken,

Great, provocative read. You say an appeal to randomness should not appear in fundamental explanations. But what if the universe really has some fundamental randomness built into it? Isn't this one way the world could be? And if so, then shouldn't this be part of our fundamental picture?

I also was unsure about your conductor analogy. As you concede, in that case, we do think a more fundamental dynamical explanation is possible. So I am not sure that this gives precedent for boundary conditions being explanatory *on their own* as you want them to be. It gives precedent for boundary conditions being explanatory in contexts where we know there are more fundamental explanations that are being black-boxed. But that is not where we are in the cosmological case.

Best,

Alyssa

Dear Ken,

I highly appreciate your well-written essay in an effort to understand.

Your essay allowed to consider us like-minded people.

I hope that my modest achievements can be information for reflection for you.

Vladimir Fedorov

https://fqxi.org/community/forum/topic/3080